Gulf Oil Spill: Poems of Protest and Relief
Date: Wednesday June 9th
Time: 7:30PM
Venue: Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street between Forsyth & Eldridge
$5 Suggested donation. All proceeds will go to the Alabama Coastal Foundation
Featuring: Ted Dodson, Jeffery Berg, Micheal Myron, Curtis Jensen, Ken Walker and more...
Mike Geffner Presents The Inspired Word - Night of Stars Grand Reopening! An All-Star Extravaganza of Performance Poets & Spoken Word Artists Friday, January 15, 2010 Time: 7:00pm - 10:00pm Location: (Le) Poisson Rouge http://lepoissonrouge.com/ Click here 158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012 Phone: (212) 505-FISH (3474) Cover Charge: $8
With a plush, strikingly elegant new home, (Le) Poisson Rouge, smack in the heart of Greenwich Village, we make our grand reopening and Manhattan debut with a phenomenal must-see lineup: Shanelle Gabriel, Bonafide Rojas, Erik Advocate of Wordz Maldonado, Sabrina Gilbert, Onome, Ainsley Burrows, Akua Doku, David Lawton, Timothy Prolific Jones, Boris Zilberman, Howard Treadwell, Molly Kat, Diana Arnold, Rich Story, Yenny Love, Tantra Zawadi, Charlotte Mishell, Ilya Khodosh, Justin Woo, and more!
MCs: Sherri Eldin, Marron Cox, and Yenny Love.
SIX MONTHS IN THE MAKING!
Please join us for this special night. Let's show that poetry and spoken word is alive and well in New York City!
MUST BE 21 YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER! PLEASE MAKE SURE TO BRING ID!
Can't wait to see you all,
Mike Geffner Producer/Director/Founder, The Inspired Word
Upcoming actress and poet Sabrina Gilbert has performed at college conferences, venues and theaters along the east coast and in the Midwest. She continues to push the envelope in her work as she allows her writing to constantly evolve and defy the laws of gravity. In 2008 she became the Grand Slam Champion of Slam Richmond’s 2008 team, making her the first woman to do so! She also helped start Lyric Ave in 2003, which today is the largest poetry show on the east coast (consistently serving an audience of over 800 people). Her debut album "Come Get Me" took her colleagues by storm with it’s electrifying tracks and powerful messages! The album (executive produced by Ainsley Burrwos) has earned rave reviews from several internet radio shows, magazines and has not only touched fans in the U.S. but also those living in Toronto, Paris, London and Germany. Please visit www.burrowsink.com Click here to find out when she’ll be at a venue near you.
Molly Kat is studying Creative Writing at Binghamton University. She has attended SUNY Purchase, WCC, and Cambridge University in England. She has had work published in "Ragazine" and college journals and newspapers. Currently a member of Binghamton University's slam team; Grey City Slam, she attended college Nationals for the first time, and last year went to the regionals on the Bowery Poetry Club's Intercollegiate Slam Team. Although slams have their place, she'd rather just sit around with good poets and listen... she's not big on scoring art with numbers...numbers ruin everything. Right now, all she wants to do is drop out of school and follow Sister Spit around until the tell her to get inside the van.
Ilya Khodosh
David Lawton is a performer and writer, originally from Woburn, Massachusetts. After graduating from the theatre program at Boston University, he was a Guest Artist in the graduate playwrighting classes taught there by Nobel Laureate (in poetry) Derek Walcott. He has appeared as an actor Off-Broadway, had his plays performed Off-Off Broadway, and spent ten years as a featured vocalist with the New York underground band Leisure Class. Mr. Lawton has a poem in the Americana anthology Appleseeds, currently available from Sacred Fools Press. In January 2009 he co-produced and served as a reader for Downtown Does Huncke for His Birthday, a program of stories by his friend and beat godfather Herbert Huncke.
Onome is a writer, vocalist, and performance artist whose work has been published in numerous anthologies, most recently "goodbye Billie Jean: the meaning of Michael Jackson." At sixteen, she started riveting audiences nationwide with her spoken word poetry. Since then, her focus has expanded to singing and songwriting. She contributes her vocals to film scores, live collaborations and albums. Onome's richly textured contralto draws comparisons to Sade, Nina Simone and Cassandra Wilson, yet her lush harmonics, lyrical inventiveness and genre-transcending style put her in a class of her own. Her work focuses on unconventional beauty in unexpected places and the internal landscape of the soul.
Bonafide Rojas is a poet, musician and author of pelo bueno: a day in the life of a Nuyorican poet (dark souls press, 2006). he is the vocalist/guitarist for the band The Mona Passage, a poetic rock and roll art experiment. He's also the 2002 slam this! champion and has been on two national poetry slam teams, NYC/Union Square 2002 & wicker park 2003. he has appeared in Russell Simmon's "Def Poetry Jam" season 4 and he has been published in the anthologies: bum rush the page: a def poetry jam, rolecall: "a generational anthology of social and political black literature and art, the centro journal, the acentos review, and the calabash journal.
Rich Story
Howard Treadwell is a New York native hailing from Mastic and Buffalo, New York. He believes in the beauty of razorblades and roses. A coping Manic-Depressant and survivor of multiple suicide attempts, he finds his reasons for living within the first breath of morning. Howard earned a spot on the Buffalo national slam team for two consecutive years (2006 & 2007), and became the city's Grand Slam Champion in 2006. He also coached the 2008 team. Howard is AMP|Indelible's Co-Editor-in-Chief, and its resident performance coach. He was recently a member of the Spoken Word/Hip-hop group 21poetz. Current literary projects include a chapbook entitled Dreams of Loisaida, and a poetic/prose autobiography entitled Native Blood, Barrio Soul.
Justin Woo
Tantra-zawadi, an award winning - international performance poet from New York and the author of "alifepoeminprogress," has performed her soul-stirring life-poems at venues near and far such as South Africa, London and Germany. Tantra's dedication to raising awareness for HIV/AIDS includes her spoken word video "Scarlet Waters" on the Product(RED) video wall, a PSA for Betah Associates and her latest endeavor, a documentary scheduled to debut on World AIDS Day, 2009. Tantra is a member of Collective Spirits (a melodious venture of like minds creating soulful music/poetry for the dance floor), and a mentor for Girl Child Network Worldwide and is the host/founder of WORDSPACE - A Spoken Word Series. Check out her latest projects on line: The Love Planet EP, EARTHOLOGY and Poetic Stimulus. Visit Tantra on-line @ www.tantrasmasterwordplay.com Click here, www.myspace.com/tantrais Click here and www.facebook.com/tantrazawadi.Click here
Boris Zilberman grew up in New York City and graduated from Hunter College with a double degree in Creative Writing and Psychology. In addition to writing fiction and poetry, Boris performs stand-up comedy and improv in his group Rural Juror when he's not working full time in internet marketing. He recently was one of the stars of "Monolgues," a spoken-word show directed by Def Poet Vanessa Hidary.
Featuring: Heather Aletha, Adam "ShadoKat" Bowser, Mahogany L. Browne, Darian Dauchan, Akua Doku, Adam Falkner, Joanna Hoffman, Erik "Advocate of Wordz" Maldonado, and Justin Woo.
Sankofa: "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward."
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Spoken-Word-Almanac-Project/37812178129 Click here
Super Heroes and Rockstars is an event designed to connect Spokenword with music lovers, the event is held in a rock venue, as opposed to a cafe, At this event the poet becomes the Rockstar.
Super Heroes & Rockstars
Start Time:Sunday, September 6, 2009 at 9:00pm End Time:Monday, September 7, 2009 at 4:00am Location:Southpaw Street:125 5th Ave City/Town:Brooklyn, NY
Featuring
Ainsley Burrows JP Justice Americans UK Sabrina Gilbert Lacresha Berry Shareef Ali Rain Maker Gia Linelle Sean B Rico Steal Wordsmith Jones
Fashion by Color Heritage
Plus a dance battle ... SIQQED VS NEVA SWITCH
The after party has two floors of music...get your ticket today at:
baby-shell, bent light, breaking through, guard it; we might break our own bodies, in fear of being stolen.
You asked
where I was going, a basket of hearts, ventricles, tied to my side, broken? I don’t own them.
I dreamed
you peeled from my thigh, a zipper, with teeth.
Ant-lights against palm,
I gave you a map, held out. What for? Nothing, I said, stuck lines inside my pocket--
I glow grids
at my thigh, whole cities never discovered.
Daisies:
I gathered them in my bed, (listen, my heart will love every one of you, but whisper back to me). They bowed their sides, who am I? for them, God provides.
After your letter,
bandaged-pain, I leant on storm-walls, ready for a barrage, waves of anger. Finally, said:
let the water breathe;
I’ve missed you.
- Shannon Hardwick
David Lawton
Poetry
Everywhere I go It’s poetry Poetry Is there for me And if it’s there for me It’s there for you We are only Different shades of blue
It’s John Ford’s Monument Valley Or Miss O’Keefe’s red clay plateaus The Giant Steps taken by Coltrane And Debussy’s ringing glissandos
It’s Yastrzemski in left Clemente in right It’s MJ gliding into the paint It’s number 4, Bobby Orr, Suspended in air With the winning score
The Chrysler Building’s silver flash A lone figure in Tiananmen Square The little Hispanic girl’s smile In the Chinese restaurant That album cover’s diamond raindrops Sparkling Marvin Gaye’s hair
And Christ in the desert To me the sweetest poesy In the heat of that vast moment A cooling ointment deeply burning into me
Wherever you go They say that’s where you are But poetry is what it does to you Poetry is what you take away Poetry is something to leave behind When you reach your end of day.
- David Lawton
Jane Omerod
Shangri-ha
I look up I look down I look up I look down
Let’s have a picnic tomorrow Leave before light Before the dreams Of nurse and night maids And the loot loot loot of the world
(feathers form)
I look up I look down I look up I look down Thrice married One hundred times divorced A public right of way Inside and out I have never been ravelled Extra! Extra!
Landscape? All flat or tall Oceans? So much the same “Everything in sight is his,” they say “Except the mountains”
(I own those too)
I could have been a racehorse The close nose winner of the 4.30 I might have been a parcel A day gone by Atlantic fantastical City
(and feathers fall)
Bengal tigers Monkeys One hundred thousand trees Count Recount Look up Look down Look up Look down
Bedrooms are not the same as welcomes You can pay a lot of money for a dame without a head Elizabethan ceilings Hullabaloo A quick word? What about hasty? What about rapid?
(feathers cluster)
Principles are like flatulence Promises like gentlemen in a toot toot marching band The world’s largest diamond? The same size as a stuffed shirt
Feathers float my mouth I look up I look down Mantelpiece Picture hook Chiffonier Hallucinations needed! Noise! Damn colour! Bed vows! The ridiculous!
I cannot sleep with bread I need to own To cut away To lack and lack lustre Take it now Own up Own down A picnic One picnic A picnic from out of this world
- Jane Ormerod First published in 11 Films (Modern Metrics, 2008)
The Inspired Word: Passionate Readings of Poetry & Prose
When: Monday, July 27
Location: Tierra Sana Restaurant http://www.tierrasana.com/ 100-17 Queens Blvd & 67th Road Forest Hills, Queens New York City
By subway, take the local R or V to 67th Avenue stop (and it's right there between 67th Road and 67th Avenue along Queens Boulevard).
Time: 7:00-10 PM (though you're welcome to stay until closing time)
No cover charge! Awesome ambience and food! A great collection of writers and their work!
Performer Bios:
Seren Divine is a feminist, educator, performance & visual artist, producer, and award winning poet. She has toured and competed across the country, with over a decade of involvement in the National Poetry Slams, and makes a living as a Teaching Artist, leading Performance & Writing Workshops for youth from the Bronx to Brooklyn, for both Urban Arts Partnership & Urban Word NYC.
Doug Holder is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press. His poetry and interviews have appeared in the Home Planet News, Boog City, Word Riot, Rattle, Main St. Rag, Poetry Motel, Boston Globe Magazine, and many others. His latest book of poetry is "The Man in the Booth in the Midtown Tunnel” (Cervena Barva Press 2008). It was a pick of the month in the Small Press Review. He holds an MA in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University.
Laurel Kallen has just completed her MFA in creative writing at City College, where she teaches in the English Department. She is the recipient of the 2009 Stark Short Fiction Award and the Teacher/Writer Award. Her work has appeared in Promethean, Poetry in Performance, Global City Review, Legal Studies Forum, and The Best of Stain. Laurel was a speech writer for former New York City Mayor David Dinkins. She also holds an MA in French and is an attorney admitted to practice in New York and New Jersey. She has two daughters in college who are strongly opposed to their mother’s presence on Facebook.
Yenny Love is a fresh voice burning up the New York poetry scene with her raw style, strong stage presence, good humor and originality. Love, 31, was born in the Dominican Republic, came to the United States when she was 11 years old, and was raised in the Poconos and New Jersey. In her 20s, Love was featured as a hip hop dancer in various music videos, but it was her love of spoken word poetry that drew her back to the limelight. She has performed at various venues, including the S.P.I.T. Open Mic Series and Urban Juke Joint. She has also attended Acentos poetry workshops at Hostos Community College.
Cindy AnaCaona Peralta, born and raised in the heart of mini- Quisqueya, aka Domincan Republic-ville, has been writing poetry since the age of 13 and never looked back. While in high school, her poems were published in the weekly paper on numerous occasions, and now, at 27, she is currently working towards her career as a writer, singer, musician, poet, and being a new mother. With a style of brutal honesty, she has performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Bar 13, Culture Shock at the Sutra lounge, Baltimore, Maryland, and the Latino Cultural Festival at Flushing Hall of Science.
Like many R&B/Soul artists, Stephanie Rogers knew her first love of reciting poetry at a young age. By way of a place of worship, it took a conveniently misplaced poem winding up in the hands of a church elder for her to embrace the gift of presenting written works of her own special scribblings. Since receiving her Bachelor’s from the College of Mount Saint Vincent, her scribblings have evolved into sometimes inspirational, slightly neurotic and comically erotic works. She’s been published in PLAYGIRL magazine, has been an URBANA Open Slam participant, twice a featured poet at STARK Open Mic, and 2-time First Runner up in the House of Xavier’s Glam Slam. Her newest published work, and 1st collaborative effort combining erotic art and poetry, makes its debut this summer.
Odilia Rivera Santos was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, but at the age of almost 6, her family moved from a quiet peaceful village to a crime-ridden, fire-ravaged South Bronx neighborhood. Ms. Santos draws her steadfastness and intellectual curiosity from the melding of her two beginnings. She has published fiction, nonfiction and poetry in Spanish and English in various journals and expects one of her novels to be published soon.
MC/Host: Marron Cox
All you need to bring is your love for the written word.
The Inspired Word: Passionate Readings of Poetry & Prose
When: Monday, July 6
Location: Tierra Sana Restaurant http://www.tierrasana.com/ 100-17 Queens Blvd & 67th Road Forest Hills, Queens New York City
By subway, take the local R or V to 67th Avenue stop (and it's right there between 67th Road and 67th Avenue along Queens Boulevard).
Time: 7:00-10 PM (though you're welcome to stay until closing time)
Awesome ambience and food! A great collection of writers and their work!
Performer Bios:
Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir WHIP SMART, forthcoming from Thomas Dunne Books in 2010. Her fiction and essays have been published in The Southeast Review, Redivider, The Rambler, Storyscape Journal, and Bitch Magazine among others. She co-curates and hosts the Mixer Reading and Music Series in Manhattan, and teaches at SUNY Purchase College and The Gotham Writers’ Workshop. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. More information can be found at melissafebos.com.
Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick is a native Texan who is now discovering the excitement of New York City. Between riding the Metro North while listening to Brahms, writing blogs and recording her writing online, Shannon is working toward her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. Shannon previously worked as a Title Agent, researching wills and various other legal documents in dusty courthouses across Texas before moving to New York. She found reading Warranty Deeds surprisingly inspiring material for her poetry. Now, she's finding inspiration while wandering NYC, shooting photography and writing strangers' conversations down in her notebook. Her Myspace page can be found at: www.myspace.com/shannonhardwickpoetry
Valerie Jupe originally hails from Texas and wrote her first poem around age 5. She has been featured in high school and college poetry journals as well as the book "Shattered Fragments of my Soul." Like many artists, Val's life is heavily influenced by her own depression and anxiety though her poetry also trends toward love, philosophy, and constant questioning. She has worked as a film and video editor for seven years and enjoys tirelessly (for her) though tiresomely (for her family) documenting her life through photos. Valerie recently returned from a two-month trip around Europe.
David Lawton is a performer and writer, originally from Woburn, Massachusetts. After graduating from the theatre program at Boston University, he was a Guest Artist in the graduate playwrighting classes taught there by Nobel Laureate (in poetry) Derek Walcott. He has appeared as an actor Off-Broadway, had his plays performed Off-Off Broadway, and spent ten years as a featured vocalist with the New York underground band Leisure Class. Mr. Lawton has a poem in the Americana anthology Appleseeds, currently available from Sacred Fools Press. In January 2009 he co-produced and served as a reader for Downtown Does Huncke for His Birthday, a program of stories by his friend and beat godfather Herbert Huncke.
Refusing to characterize her poetic style as either academic or performance, LisaAnn LoBasso considers herself most at home among artists. With over 20 years experience, she has produced countless readings and collaborative arts events, such as the Up Close, Let Loose Traveling Poets’ Reading Series, and Operation Soapbox, while still racking up her own credentials, including Poet Ambassador of Kern County in California, as well as appearances at venues and universities from West Coast to East. LisaAnn’s work has been lauded as both dynamic and boundary-breaking; dubbed a poetry minstrel by Las Vegas City Life Weekly, she has featured with diverse and noteworthy poets, such as Nicholas Roerich Prize winner Lee McCarthy, California Poet Laureate Al Young, and Paterson Award Winner Indran Amirthanayagam. Twice nominated for California Poet Laureate 2008, she has two poetry books in print: In the Swollen a poetry collection (2003), and Oleander Milkshake, (2008). In her spare time, LisaAnn develops creative writing programs, theatre scripts, arts-education programs, and public arts installations with artists as far as England. She travels worldwide and recently just returned from living in India for three months. LisaAnn has worked closely with Gluck Award winner Frances Mconnel, National Book Award finalist and critically acclaimed author Susan Straight, and Pulitzer Prize nominee Maurya Simon.
TaÃna is the Founder/Producer of The Latino Poets' Society Spoken Word Tour, a national spoken word tour consisting of an all Latino cast, a TV producer/Independent filmmaker, writer, photographer, and performing poet in NYC. She is a consummate artist with an observant eye, a passion for her culture and an undying drive to showcase the social ills of a lopsided society, Always on a quest to reach individuals in less than fortunate circumstances, she draws from her own experiences and never runs out of hope or inspiration. Through her work, she intends on changing people’s lives with one piece of art at a time.
MC/Host: Marron Cox
All you need to bring is your love for the written word.
The Inspired Word: Passionate Readings of Poetry & Prose
When: Monday, June 29
Time: 7:00-10 pm (though you're welcome to stay until closing time)
Location: Tierra Sana Restaurant http://www.tierrasana.com/ Click here 100-17 Queens Blvd & 67th Road Forest Hills, Queens New York City
By subway, take the local R or V to 67th Avenue stop (and it's right there between 67th Road and 67th Avenue along Queens Boulevard).
Free wine tasting and appetizers for the first hour! Awesome ambience and food! A great collection of writers and their work!
Performer Bios:
DubbleX has been writing & playing music his entire life. He has been published by Street Literature Review Magazine (paper) The Cartier Street Review, the Nov. 3rd Club, Polarity, Mad Swirl, and readerjack.com, and wheelhouse magazine. DubbleX teaches special education and writes & plays music to stay sane.
Melissa Fadul is a native of Queens, New York. She received her MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. She teaches high school English literature full-time in Jamaica, New York. Along with poetry, she is currently working on a collection of short stories.
Patricia Spears Jones is a poet, playwright and cultural commentator. She is author of Femme du Monde and The Weather That Kills. Her work is anthologized in Bowery Women: Poems; broken land: Poems of Brooklyn, Poetry After 911; Best American Poetry, 2000 and in the journals: The Black Scholar, Bomb, TriQuarterly, Barrow Street, PMS: poemmemiorstory, Fifth Wednesday, Court Green, and Black Renaissance Noire. Reviews, interviews, and essays can be found in The Poetry Project Newsletter, Calabar, Black Issues Book Review, Bomb, Village Voice, Essence, The Brooklyn Rail, and www.tribes.org. She received awards from the NEA, NYFA, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Goethe Institute and was appointed to the Black Earth Institute, www.blackearthinstitute.org in 2008 and the VCCA Fellows Council in 2006.
Soraya Shalforoosh’s poems and reviews have appeared in journals such as the Marlboro Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Barrow Street, Columbia Poetry Review, Tribes.org, etc. Soraya Shalforoosh was featured as an Emerging Poet in the Academy of American Poet’s, emerging poet series.
Stephanie Sherman does things that are deemed useless in a capitalist society, like poetry-writing and dancing. She spent two years in Quito, Ecuador on a Fulbright scholarship, teaching and choreographing works that reflected the realities of Ecuadorian society. There, she published her first book of poems, Alucinando en Quito (Editorial Carishina, 2007), in Spanish. For the last two years, she has been writing poems simultaneously in both languages. This spring, she will graduate from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, with an MFA in Dance. In 2001, she graduated from Vassar College with Phi Beta Kappa and high honors in Hispanic Studies.
Tantra-zawadi, an award-winning performance poet and author, has been spreading her spoken word message to global, standing-room-only audiences for some time now. Her poetry was featured in Essence Magazine and she is the host and founder of WORDSPACE - A Spoken Word Series. Some of her performance credits include Def Poetry-Plugged In at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Brooklyn Museum, Barnum Museum, Polk County Museum, Brooklyn NEXT, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the Guild Theatre, Trane Studios and When Sisters Speak in Toronto, and the Product(RED) video-wall. Latest CD: Love Planet EP with Collective Spirits. For more info, please visit her site: http://www.tantrasmasterwordplay.com/. Click here
All you need to bring is your love for the written word, but...PLEASE do your best to support the restaurant, your servers, and the performing writers.
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